‘Every climate indicator is flashing red’: State of Climate report shows Earth being pushed beyond limits
The Earth’s energy imbalance is the highest it has ever been since records began 65 years ago, and the damage done in the past decade by concentrated greenhouse gas emissions will have harmful repercussions for hundreds, if not thousands of years, a United Nations report has warned.
In the latest State of Climate report from the UN-backed World Meteorological Organization (WMO), it was reported that 2015 to 2025 were the hottest 11 years on record, with last year being the second or third hottest year on record with temperatures recorded 1.43 degrees C above the 1800-1900 average. This has caused intense heat, heavy rainfall and tropical cyclones around the world, causing disruption and devastation in vulnerable economies.
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“The state of the global climate is in a state of emergency. Planet Earth is being pushed beyond its limits. Every key climate indicator is flashing red,” commented UN secretary-general António Guterres.
“Humanity has just endured the 11 hottest years on record. When history repeats itself 11 times, it is no longer a coincidence. It is a call to act.”
Energy imbalance
For the first time, the report has included Earth’s energy imbalance as one of the key climate indicators. This is measured at the rate at which energy enters and leaves the Earth system. Under a stable climate, incoming energy from the sun is about the same as the amount of outgoing energy, the report stated, and the Earth’s energy imbalance has increased since its observational record began in 1960, particularly in the past 20 years. Further, it reached a new high in 2025.
“Scientific advances have improved our understanding of the Earth’s energy imbalance and of the reality facing our planet and our climate right now,” explained WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo. “Human activities are increasingly disrupting the natural equilibrium and we will live with these consequences for hundreds and thousands of years.”
“On a day-to-day basis, our weather has become more extreme. In 2025, heatwaves, wildfires, drought, tropical cyclones, storms and flooding caused thousands of deaths, impacted millions of people and caused billions in economic losses,” added Saulo.
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More than 91% of the excess heat is stored in the ocean, which is now acting as a major buffer against higher temperatures on land, the report continued.
“Ocean heat content reached a new record high in 2025 and its rate of warming more than doubled from 1960-2005 to 2005-2025,” it detailed.
“Another 3% of the excess energy warms and melts ice. The ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland have both lost significant mass and the annual average Arctic sea-ice extent for 2025 was the lowest or second lowest on record in the satellite era. Exceptional glacier mass loss occurred in Iceland and along the Pacific coast of North America in 2025.”
The melting ice is accelerating global mean sea levels higher, and changes in ocean warming, and deep ocean pH have become irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales.
“And in this age of war, climate stress is also exposing another truth: our addiction to fossil fuels is destabilising both the climate and global security. Today’s report should come with a warning label: climate chaos is accelerating and delay is deadly,” added Guterres.
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